Montoya fastest at Monza testing

Wednesday was the first busy day at this week's Monza test session after Ferrari was working solo the day before. On August 24th 16 drivers from eight teams took to the Italian track and McLaren's Juan Pablo Montoya was the fastest man with a best time of 1:19.880. Teammate Kimi Raikkonen and test drivers Alex Wurz and Pedro de la Rosa were all on track as well.

Juan Pablo Montoya.

Photo by xpb.cc.

The trio were headed by Wurz in fourth fastest, de la Rosa fifth and Raikkonen sixth. Wurz and de la Rosa drove in the morning and Montoya and Raikkonen in the afternoon; race distances, tyres and set up was the programme for the day. De la Rosa went off track at the end of his stint behind the wheel and McLaren identified a gearbox problem.

Championship rivals Renault were also in the front runners, Fernando Alonso second quickest and Giancarlo Fisichella third -- Alonso was a second behind Montoya. The pair worked on set up in the morning them moved on to tyres in the afternoon and completed nearly 200 laps between them.

David Coulthard was the faster of the two Red Bulls on track in seventh and Tonio Liuzzi was 14th. Toyota also had two cars at work, test drivers Ricardo Zonta and Olivier Panis eighth and sixteenth respectively.

Ferrari tester Luca Badoer was ninth on the timesheet and Felipe Massa was once again behind the wheel for the Maranello squad, 10th. Yesterday Massa was just under a second down on Rubens Barrichello and today he was just over a tenth behind Badoer. Set up and tyres were the focus of the day and Michael Schumacher will join Badoer tomorrow.

Mark Webber was the lead Williams in 11th and the team also had tester Nico Rosberg at work, 13th. "Following the tyre incidents in Istanbul, the team spent the first day of the Monza test analysing the potential cause of the problem," said technical director Sam Michael.

"Williams and Michelin have investigated the tyre running parameters, such as pressure and camber, and concluded that the tyres were running within normal operating ranges compared to other cars. It is not thought that the curbs caused the problem."

"Additionally, Williams have set up tyre deflection tests in Grove to verify what parts of the bodywork the tyre could have contacted during the high speed left hander at Istanbul. A number of changes will be made during the test this week to avoid the problem occurring again."

Jacques Villeuenve was the sole Sauber on track -- Massa will return to the blue car cockpit on Friday -- and was 12th on the time sheet. Set up, tyres and aerodynamic assessment was his programme for the day, Likewise, Tiago Monteiro was the single Jordan present and was 15th quickest.